Christ Said to Love My Neighbor…Who Is My Neighbor?

‘DACA was an executive action taken by President Obama that allowed undocumented immigrants who came the US under the age of 16 to apply for protection from deportation. After a background check, those individuals were able to get renewable two-year permits to work and study in the US, as well.’

‘Since it went into effect in 2012 roughly 800,000 people were protected by the program, and roughly 700,000 had active protection in September, when the Trump administration announced its end.’

‘To be eligible, applicants had to have arrived in the US before age 16 and have lived there since June 15, 2007. They could not have been older than 30 when the department of Homeland Security enacted the policy in 2012.’ CNN

‘DHS set a date of March 5 for permits to begin expiring. All current permits will be honored until their individual two-year expiration date.’ CNN

A Bill that is co-sponsored by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin would transform DACA into a formal and legal program which would afford the participants a path to citizenship.

Many students, including students at SIU, are members of the DACA program.

Is it fair to tell these students, who came out of the shadows and became members of DACA, a United States governmental program, that now they are soon to be illegal immigrants again and subject to deportation.

There are 900 members of the DACA program in our military.

President Trump says he will make a deal with the Democrats that if they will provide him with 18 billion dollars for his, ‘big beautiful wall’, in exchange for an agreement on the DACA Participants.

Do you recall Presidential Candidate Trump assuring us that Mexico would pay for the wall?

I marvel at the passionate outcries of many in our country that exclaim that the immigrants should leave the United States and that they should be either prohibited from entry to our country or limited greatly.

Our President’s family…were immigrants.

The only Americans that are native to our soil…are Native Americans.

It has been suggested that many countries that seek to immigrate to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave…come from ‘shithole countries’ according to President Trump.

It has also been noted that we need criteria that only well educated and applicants from primarily white populations be given preferential treatment for immigration to the home of the; ‘…Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breath free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp besides the golden door!’ Emma Lazarus

UNITED STATES – SEPTEMBER 11: People seek refuge inside a bank building after the first tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. (Photo by Corey Sipkin/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

UNITED STATES – SEPTEMBER 11: The World Trade Center was destroyed by two planes containing hijackers. Firefighter Kevin Shea of Ladder 35 lies semi conscious in debris field with Firefighter Ritchie Nogan of 113 standing over him. Shea was the only survivor of his unit. He was carried out by Nogan, two EMS workers and photographer Todd Maisel. (Photo by Todd Maisel/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)